Investigations Editor, The Age

Pregnant women are propositioned to give up their babies at pre-natal health checks and new mothers are approached in the maternity ward. Photo: Getty

Newborn babies are being traded on a lucrative black market in Indonesia that could involve hundreds of children a year, some going illegally to parents offshore.

Pregnant women have been propositioned to give up their babies at pre-natal health checks and new mothers approached in the maternity ward, according to a court case due to start on Tuesday that exposes the trade.

The country's child protection commission says thousands of children have been bought and sold over the past 15 years.

Authorities believe thousands of children have been bought and sold in the past 10 to 15 years.

In 2004 the illegal adoption issue caught out an Australian couple, who believed they were getting a baby legally but were rejected by the Australian authorities when they tried to have their child's citizenship changed. The couple exposed the agent behind that scam, lawyer Isnania Singgih, who spent four years in jail.

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The country introduced strict laws in 1983 to stop adoption agencies operating as so-called “baby farms” for foreign customers but according to the Commission for Child Protection, it has driven the practice underground.

In January, West Jakarta police arrested a syndicate of six women accused of buying babies, arranging identity documents and selling them at a huge mark-up, some apparently bound for overseas.

On Tuesday, Lindawati Suhandojo, 35, an alleged document forger for the group, will face court. But police say the mastermind is a 62-year-old former midwife called Hastuti Singgih, aka Linda, who had been plying her highly profitable trade for more than 20 years.

It's unclear who her customers were, whether Linda screened for their suitability or asked what they planned to do with the babies.

According to police, she and her co-conspirators trawled the maternity wards and health clinics of Jakarta hunting out poor or unmarried women, or those with too many mouths to feed.

“They are booked in advance before the baby is even born,” said the head of West Jakarta Police Criminal Investigation, Hengki Hariadi. “There was no downpayment.”

The price to the mother, according to police, was between 1.6 million and 2.5 million rupiah — $160 to $250 — enough in a country where many struggle to earn a few hundred thousand rupiah a month.

Once the syndicate had checked the baby's health, police say corrupt public servants from Jakarta's population and civil registry office “made birth certificate and family cards”.

The syndicate sold the babies for prices starting at 70 million rupiah — around $7000 – a 3500 per cent mark-up.

The operation was on an industrial scale — police say that 12 babies were bought and sold in November and December 2012. They found 40 more baby pictures on a mobile phone belonging to Linda.

For one baby, a passport had been made and a $US500 Tiger Airways ticket to Singapore was found.

But in another tragic case the baby was unhealthy, so Linda refused to accept him. She tried to hand him back to the mother who also knocked him back.

Arrests began in January and by March, five babies had been recovered. Two were hospitalised and others taken to orphanages. The conspirators face up to 15 years' imprisonment.

It's not the first baby-selling racket uncovered in Indonesia, but Linda's impunity over 20 years suggests it's widespread in a country where it's very difficult for non-Indonesians to legitimately adopt a child.

It's also a place where the supply of poor, undocumented children is plentiful. Economic growth rates of 7 per cent per year do not mask the grinding poverty of millions, and 60 per cent of the 76 million children born since 2005 have no birth certificate.

Arist Merdeka Sirait, the chairman of Komnas Perlindungan Anak, the National Commission for Child Protection, says he has come across many cases of child trafficking in the past 15 years. He reports them to police, but few prosecutions result.

He says babies are smuggled out by boat to Malaysia through the notorious Batam Island — the closest port to Singapore.

Strict rules on overseas adoptions were imposed in Indonesia in 1983 when private adoption agencies were discovered running what was described as a “cash and carry” business for Western families.

But the growth of syndicates, such as Linda's, show the baby farming continues. It's just become harder to spot.